herself before she'd let Charlie get hurt.
'What's the holdup?' Charlie was suddenly in the doorway behind her, looking over her shoulder. 'I thought we were in a hurry.'
She didn't turn around, but already smelled the sausage and knew he had started breakfast without them.
'Jared was just getting Andrew up,' she said, avoiding Jared's eyes. 'Charlie, why don't you help him, so that we can keep him tied up in the back seat. I'm driving.'
Charlie scooted in around her, and she could feel Jared's anger. Still, she avoided looking at him. Before he could protest, Charlie had Andrew on his feet and shuffling out the door.
CHAPTER 64
10:33 a.m.
Pakula asked for the third time, 'You think Kramer's fucking with us?'
'If he's involved,' Grace said as calmly as she had both times before. 'And we know he has to be somehow involved because he wants us to catch Barnett.'
Pakula let out another sigh. He pulled his tie loose, hoping that would help him breathe. It didn't. 'I don't know. It feels too easy. Tell me exactly what he said.' He expected Grace to get impatient with him, but instead she started at the beginning.
'He said he got a call from Barnett, asking for help. Barnett told him that he only meant to rob the bank but things went wrong. He wasn't about to turn himself in. He didn't want-'
'He said Barnett said that exactly? That he wasn't gonna turn himself in?'
'Yes, and that he didn't want to go back to jail.'
Pakula couldn't believe how calm she was, when he felt like a wet rag. Why the fuck was it so hot again?
'He said he knew Kramer would never be able to get him off this time,' she continued, the details the same as the last time she told him. She didn't even need her notes. 'That all he needed was some money. And then he told Kramer to wire the money to the Triple J Truck Stop on Interstate 80, west of Grand Island, just off the exit for Normal, Nebraska.'
'How much money?'
'He asked for twenty-five thousand dollars. Kramer said he has it ready to be wired if and when we tell him to.'
'And this morning was the first time he heard from him?'
'That's what he said.'
'But he has to know we can check that out.' Pakula didn't trust this asshole any more than he trusted Barnett. Were the two of them setting up something? A distraction, perhaps, while Barnett headed in the opposite direction? 'You think he's on the level?'
Grace filled her arms with the stack of files from his extra chair, looking for a place to set them so she could sit down. He grabbed them from her, a little embarrassed that he hadn't thought to do it himself. He put them in the corner and let them slide into a mess. Then he sat in his own chair so he wouldn't tower over her, even though he wanted-needed-to be up and moving.
'At first I was skeptical. But Max Kramer has no idea we have the locket. He can't possibly know that we suspect him of anything.' She shook her head as if she couldn't believe how slimy the guy might be. 'There was something in his tone, and I can't even explain what it was, but he almost sounded self-righteous about this, like, of course, he had no choice but to do the right thing. I mean, give me a break.'
'So he probably thinks he'll be able to milk this, too?'
'Maybe.'
The phone rang and Pakula stood to answer it even though it was right at his elbow.
'Pakula.'
'I've got a SWAT team assembled and ready to meet us there.' It was Sanchez-he didn't need an introduction. 'The Black Hawk will be ready for us in about twenty minutes.'
'Twenty minutes? You've got to be kidding.'
'We don't have much time. Are you ready to go or not?'
'I'll be ready,' Pakula said and Sanchez was gone.
He looked down at Grace and wiped the sweat from his head as he grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. 'God! I hate helicopters.'
CHAPTER 65
10:40 a.m. Highway 281N
Andrew knew from watching the road signs that they were headed in the wrong direction again. They were on Highway 281N. Colorado was west, not north. Jared kept the map laid out in his lap. He gave Melanie directions, left or right, but not much more. And neither she nor Charlie asked. Neither of them seemed to mind letting Jared be in complete control again.
He leaned his head against the back seat. How stupid he had been, thinking either of them were strong enough to take on Jared. Back at the hotel, the way she manipulated the situation, the way she got Jared to take him along, made Andrew think Melanie had grown a backbone. Now he realized he was wrong. She had eased back into her role as accomplice as if everything was back to normal.
She had the radio turned up, listening to Rush Lim-baugh after fiddling with the dial, preferring talk radio to the morning's livestock and grain prices. It was already turned up when the news brief began, and yet she reached for the dial to turn it up even more.
'We have new information on the Amber Alert that was issued this morning. At around seven-thirty a white Ford Explorer was taken from a Texaco gas station north of Hastings, off Interstate 80. The young mother had left the engine and air conditioner running for her fourteen-month-old baby while she went inside to pay for her gas. Someone drove off with the SUV and the baby. Now, law enforcement officials are saying that the alleged car thief may not have realized there was a baby in the vehicle when it was stolen. We've just been alerted-and this is just coming in as I'm reading it off the wire, so bear with me-that the Ford Explorer has been found. An anonymous tip was phoned in after the Amber Alert was issued. It's uncertain who called in and told law enforcement officials where they could find the vehicle. The SUV was found in a retail-shopping parking lot with the engine and air conditioner running and the baby…'
The announcer hesitated as if not prepared to read the rest on air, and Andrew expected the worst. He could see from Melanie's face that she did, too.
'The baby is fine. She appears to be just fine. She was found still strapped into her car seat and fast asleep. Again, I repeat, the SUV that was reported stolen earlier this morning has been found. The Amber Alert has been-'
Melanie snapped the radio off. But before she moved her hands to the bottom of the steering wheel, Andrew could see that they were shaking.
CHAPTER 66
12:22 p.m.
